No More Learning

, of the Greeks no less than the
tragics.

_Aristotle_. --_Plato_. --_Homer_. --Nor is the moving of laughter always the
end of comedy; that is rather a fowling for the people's delight, or
their fooling. For, as Aristotle says rightly, the moving of laughter is
a fault in comedy, a kind of turpitude that depraves some part of a man's
nature without a disease. As a wry face without pain moves laughter, or
a deformed vizard, or a rude clown dressed in a lady's habit and using
her actions; we dislike and scorn such representations which made the
ancient philosophers ever think laughter unfitting in a wise man. And
this induced Plato to esteem of Homer as a sacrilegious person, because
he presented the gods sometimes laughing. As also it is divinely said of
Aristotle, that to seen ridiculous is a part of dishonesty, and foolish.

_The wit of the old comedy_. --So that what either in the words or sense of
an author, or in the language or actions of men, is awry or depraved does
strangely stir mean affections, and provoke for the most part to
laughter. And therefore it was clear that all insolent and obscene
speeches, jests upon the best men, injuries to particular persons,
perverse and sinister sayings (and the rather unexpected) in the old
comedy did move laughter, especially where it did imitate any dishonesty,
and scurrility came forth in the place of wit, which, who understands the
nature and genius of laughter cannot but perfectly know.

_Aristophanes_. --_Plautus_. --Of which Aristophanes affords an ample
harvest, having not only outgone Plautus or any other in that kind, but
expressed all the moods and figures of what is ridiculous oddly.
In
short, as vinegar is not accounted good until the wine be corrupted, so
jests that are true and natural seldom raise laughter with the beast the
multitude. They love nothing that is right and proper. The farther it
runs from reason or possibility with them the better it is.

_Socrates_. --_Theatrical wit_. --What could have made them laugh, like to
see Socrates presented, that example of all good life, honesty, and
virtue, to have him hoisted up with a pulley, and there play the
philosopher in a basket; measure how many foot a flea could skip
geometrically, by a just scale, and edify the people from the engine.
This was theatrical wit, right stage jesting, and relishing a playhouse,
invented for scorn and laughter; whereas, if it had savoured of equity,
truth, perspicuity, and candour, to have tasten a wise or a learned
palate,--spit it out presently! this is bitter and profitable: this
instructs and would inform us: what need we know any thing, that are
nobly born, more than a horse-race, or a hunting-match, our day to break
with citizens, and such innate mysteries?

_The cart_. --This is truly leaping from the stage to the tumbril again,
reducing all wit to the original dung-cart.



Of the magnitude and compass of any fable, epic or dramatic.


_What the measure of a fable is_. --_The fable or plot of a poem
defined_. --_The epic fable_, _differing from the dramatic_. --To the
resolving of this question we must first agree in the definition of the
fable. The fable is called the imitation of one entire and perfect
action, whose parts are so joined and knit together, as nothing in the
structure can be changed, or taken away, without impairing or troubling
the whole, of which there is a proportionable magnitude in the members.